From A Midsummer Night's Dream. Ed. K. Deighton. London: Macmillan & Co.
3. transported, made away with, carried off by some agency;
it seems hardly necessary to take the word as an euphemism for
'murdered,' as Schmidt does.
8. discharge, play; see note on i. 2. 84.
9, 10. the best ... man, a confusion of constructions between
'a better wit than any handicraft man,' and 'the best wit of all
handicraft men'; handicraft, from "A.S. handcroeft, a trade,
the insertion of i being due to an imitation of the form of handiwork, in which i is a real part of the word ... from A.S. hand and geweorc, another form of weorc work"... (Skeat, Ety. Dict.).
13. paragon, "a model of excellence ... F. paragon, 'a paragon,
or peerlesse one'; Cot. — Span. paragon, a model, paragon. A
singular word owing its origin to two prepositions united in a
phrase. —Span. para con ... —Span. para, for ... which is itself a
compound preposition, answering O. Span. pora, from Lat. pro
ad ... and con from Lat. cum. Thus it is really equivalent to the
three Lat. prepositions pro, ad, cum" (Skeat, Ety. Dict.).
14. a thing of naught, a worthless thing; naught, from which
our word naughty, being the A.S. nawhit, no thing.
15. from the temple, i.e. after his marriage there.
17. had gone forward, had been carried out; if our play had been acted: we had ... men, our fortunes would have been made;
cp. T. N. ii. 6. 168, "Go to, thou art made, if thou desirest to
be so."
18. bully, see note on iii. 1. 7.
19. 'scaped, missed getting; Flute employs for missing a piece
of good fortune a word more properly used of getting out of a
difficulty, scrape.
20, 1. an the duke ... hanged, I'll be hanged if the duke would
not have given, etc., i.e. assuredly the duke would have given.
22. sixpence ... nothing, if he were rewarded at all, as he was
sure to have been, the reward for his playing Pyramus could not
have been less than sixpence a day for life: in Pyramus, in
his character as Pyramus. Steevens thinks there may here be
an allusion to a pension of twenty pounds a year bestowed on
one Thomas Preston for his acting before Elizabeth at Cambridge
in 1564.
23. hearts, brave fellows, sc. his comrades; cp. Temp, i. 1. 7.
"cheerly, cheerly, my hearts!"
24. courageous, possibly Bottom means 'auspicious.'
26. I am to, I have to; it is what I am bound to do; cp.
Tim. 1. 2. 155, "I am to thank you for it"; and see Abb. § 405.
31, 2. good strings to your beards, i.e. so that they may not
fall off in the acting: pumps, court shoes, thin-soled shoes. "So
called ... because worn for 'pomp' or ornament, by persons in
full dress.— 'F. pompe, pomp, state ... a pied de plombe et de
pompe, with a slow and stately gate [gait]: Cot.'" (Skeat, Ety.
Dict.).
34. the short and the long, the fact; the whole story; more
commonly 'the long and the short of the matter': preferred, is
generally explained as 'offered for acceptance'; but Bottom
seems certain that the play has been accepted, and probably
the word means has 'received the honour of being accepted.'
36. shall hang, are bound to hang, must hang.
38. we are to utter, it is our duty to breathe.
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How to cite the explanatory notes:
Shakespeare, William. A Midsummer Night's Dream. Ed. K. Deighton. London: Macmillan, 1891. Shakespeare Online. 20 Feb. 2010. (date when you accessed the information) < http://www.shakespeare-online.com/plays/mids_4_2.html >.
